Crossroad
by rosereldew
Summary: Because no matter how sweet the meeting, how right the friendship, or how tempting the union, a crossroad is a crossroad and you always move past it. [Probably GastxMariam. Canon verse.]
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Gast, Mariam, or the Evillious Chronicles. I guess this chapter can't really stand on its own as a one-shot and it is okay as a backdrop-setter, so there we are.**

* * *

To anyone else in the army, the Emperor's addition was little more than a symbol. A hero's descendant, a pitiful street-rat.

Zenon spoke no Beelzenian. His Elpegortian, as Aria had gleaned from pausing to scramble for her hairpin on the palace floor, was stilted and limited to basic vocabulary. He could not read.

And so, _to anyone else in the army_, he was but a naive child.

Two weeks were gone, then, simple and clean. Aria was aware of everything and everyone, this story just budding in her palm.

He took the name Gast. In his manners, Aria saw confusion and doubt as he introduced himself the day later at the behest of his superiors.

"My name's Gast now," he'd said with a tense face and mouth slightly curled in what might have been an attempted smile. "and you're the head of information...yes?"

"Yes," Aria had said. Yes, and he was holding back a sneer. Not out of distress, though, he'd said it easily enough, but of disrespect for the Emperor in- a minor way. A vision of him as naive himself. After all, what was the point of Gast taking another name when his life as a despised child would never escape him? The soldiers didn't see him as anything other than a pet, the life outside the army could not accept his stranger inclinations, and Elphegort would be burned in his mind for eternity.

The name did nothing but brush aside concerns.

Aria knew better than to assume Gast was anything less than dangerous. His mind was open but not welcoming. He was ignorant but not innocent. His eyes were wide but not bright, unless of course you counted the light bouncing off them without ever permeating his skull.

Weeks passed and Gast continued training. Aria kept small tabs on him, not much more than any other foreigner, but with a slight interest she didn't have with everyone.

He was a challenge to figure out, of course, and spoke little when he attended dinners. He preferred to spend more time learning to read. It made sense to Aria. No one wanted to be the dumb muscle, even if it wasn't their fault. When he did speak, he was polite, but always turned questions about his past around onto the present, ("Yes, being poor was difficult, it helped prepare me with continuing to work on my stance this week".)

Training was the turning point for him, though. Mastering ten techniques every week was something few people in the army had been able to do for all its known history. According to Logan, his batch's instructor, Gast was terrifying to duel with. He laughed.

Hm. She remained busy, collecting information on Lucifenian immigrants, leaks in the army, and Mariam, her star.

Mariam was five. Gast was twelve. In a few more years, they could be friends.

* * *

Oh, he was not an innocent and not a child. Gast had been torn from that role a very, very long time ago, so long ago that he didn't remember it and didn't regret it.

He was happy. Sometimes out of food, sometimes clothes, sometimes fighting, he was happy to be in the army and happy to be a respectable person. Not that they would think that if they realized what he looked forward to in the day, the images that went through his mind when he picked up a sword. No matter, they didn't _need _to know.

He was happy not to look out for his neck anymore, but he still had issues with his mind. It was hard to admit, of course, but the wholeness of self he'd gained during his time in Elphegort, the shamelessness, the sureness of what he was doing and how it had to be done, was the only positive thing from his childhood and not something he would sacrifice with philosophical debates on "right" and "wrong" and attempts to fix his twisted worldview.

He didn't kill innocents. He helped his country. He was a decent person, and he didn't have to listen to anyone contesting that.

Gast was fourteen. Recently, a girl named Mariam Futapie had been appointed general of the Silver Sparrow Unit. She was seven.

"Of course, she was picked because of her mother," a soldier had whispered from a corner while he'd tried to sleep before the protective conflict of a border town to Lucifenia.

"Undoubtedly." came another voice and it chuckled.

"Maybe," Gast had said and closed his eyes.

"Let's just sleep." said someone and they did.

Mariam's mother was Aria Futapie, also the daughter of a former intelligence head. And an extremely self-serving, deranged woman.

How Gast knew this had to be the aloofness in her eyes as she spoke the casualties Lucifenia imposed upon them as the soldiers were gathered before her.

"Another hundred in Luxu. That was a canon, by the way," she'd said and let her hands hang loosely clasped together, relaxed. Her face calm and lips set with her tongue behind her her teeth, curling mouth corners, watching the reactions of the soldiers with glistening eyes.

Gast was good at reading people. It had either developed while he deflected his comrades or helped with it, but he knew when he saw her gliding about the grounds or the palace he lived in that the only thing on her mind was something completely unrelated to the wellbeing of her fellows. She was constantly smiling. It terrified him.

Her daughter was different. Gast had seen Mariam when she was with Aria. Always standing back and watching with the same intensity but a different dullness than her mother. They had never spoken to each other. Yet he thought it noteworthy Mariam had never smiled once, and her posture was tense and rigid.

Maybe it was pity or some kind of _empathy_. But it seemed to Gast that if Mariam was a result of nepotism, she would try to act like Aria the Second. She was no Aria the Second.

Instead she was interesting. He would have liked to speak to her, but they were on two different pieces of the puzzle.

Gast didn't stop feeling as though she was what he was in a way. A pawn to a higher power. A gateway to a predecessor.

But he hated Sateriasis, and perhaps she had no qualms about being Aria's daughter. If she _did_, though…

Of course, Mariam was also a seven-year old general, and Gast could do no worse with his skill. He would always think about that when he heard of her.

But she would without a doubt be different than the rest. There was no use in denying that…

* * *

"Mother."

"Mariam?" Aria smiled at her daughter vaguely, eyes transparent. Light pooled into them. She was holding a pen in one hand and something else behind her, which she'd probably hid when she heard Mariam coming in from outside.

"The woman you spoke with-" Mariam's pause was brief, almost fluid, while it was not. "she was never in the palace or meetings."

"She," Aria said, enunciating every syllable, "is an outsider to the army. But necessary for the operation.

"Mari, you know I can't tell you much about my business," Aria said, "so just do your work and wait 'til you're older."

Mariam felt a sigh coming but remained quiet for another moment. She remembered the old, withered and twisted face of Aria's new colleague before evenly saying, "She is just suspicious. Please don't get into... trouble, Mother."

Aria nodded and began to write something in the journal she kept in hand half the time. Ah.

Mariam knew better than to ask what was in it. She had been scared to know, because whatever her mother prepared her for with cuts and bruises, broken resolves that reforged into stronger ones like anything else that was alive, and hyper-awareness must have been horrid.

"Don't worry," the soldiers said, "enjoy your childhood. It's a fast thing."

Mariam never said what she thought.

Her childhood was like being a grown-up with all the responsibility and yet none of the power.

She kept a small mirror in her sleeve and read like Aria had taught her, over her shoulder and backwards.

Because even the sixteen-year old who came to the army at twelve had known how to get by on his own, and if he could tread water for so many years, she could leap from one dock to another without fear.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dear," came up Aria's voice, reminding Mariam to hide the note from a Lucifenian general in a shoe slot she'd made herself.

"Yes, Mother?"

"Mariam," Aria said, appearing in the doorway of Mariam's chamber with a relaxed posture. "Come downstairs to the basement. We need to do some cleaning."

"Yes, Mother."

Of course, they would clean; there was no reason not to. But that wasn't why Mariam was being called down to the only room in the house deep enough underground, deep enough that with a sufficiently thick door no eavesdropping could be done.

Mariam didn't glance at her shoe. She stood and set down the book she'd been holding up to cover her note on the desk. There were many Futapies coming in and out in days of war and death.

"Asmodean:

EFDFCNFS 2

FJHIU O"

Breaking the code, the simple instructions were December 3rd, 8:00 at night. Asmodean addressed her, because anyone who saw this could just as easily assume the spy betraying their army was one of her cousins kept in her thrall under the Silver Sparrow unit.

For a moment, Mariam studied the flowers on the desk, silver and white carnations that of course were meant to symbolize her appearance, and felt as though she should be calm, like the decorations in a stable and beautiful home, but wasn't. And that with her note, she should be anxious, but wasn't, and had no idea what to feel because she'd been prepared for this situation forever and never at the same time. Being a free girl was a feeling she'd never experienced, but had she thought it? A hundred times _yes._

The basement was just as normal as any other aspect of the home. In appearance, at least, because there was nothing normal about the conversations there.

"You are not going to turn on me, right, Mari?" asked Aria with a glint in her eye. She had a bucket of hot water and soap, rags, and a broom that was currently sweeping back and forth across the floor as though it could drown out their words. "He's quite attractive, but my little daughter won't be interested in boys for a good long time, now."

Her sense of humor in these matters left Mariam cold.

"Of course not." Mariam shook her head and picked up a rag. "I am sorry if I gave that impression."

"Oh, it's just a joke," sighed Aria, "and I have perfectly serious things to discuss with you, sweet."

"Please speak, Mother."

Aria paused and laughed a little with a slight shake of the head that eluded Mariam's understanding.

"When you go off to Lucifenia, you'll have to work hard to get back," Aria said.

Mariam nodded and took off her shoe, beating her palm against the heel until Lucifenia's message fell out. She walked over to the water and soap, dipped the rag in, and began scrubbing an old table while her mother stooped to pick it up.

"December eighth," she read aloud and easily, "8:00 at night. Addressed to the 'Asmodean' in their ranks. So they can think it's any Futapie…"

"Yes."

"Fools!" Aria cried, and tossed the paper back at Mariam's feet.

"Yes."

Again, Aria paused and laughed a bit before continuing to sweep the floor. Mariam tried to pick up the note and the rag slapped across her skirt, but thankfully not on the delicate paper. How to explain to her allies that it had been out in the open was a difficult puzzle.

Mariam sighed a little herself, her mother waiting silently for her to stop having trouble, and set the rag hanging over the edge of the bucket of water. She kicked the note across the floor where it would stay when she was done and her hands were dry.

"How will I work to get back here?" Mariam's typical reticence came in handy now, ensuring that her lack of enthusiasm was normal.

"Hm. You might have to fake your death, or be kidnapped by Asmodeans, or maybe wait until a filthy demon child joins the ranks of Lucifenia and collaborate the the righteous there," Aria said. "But you will get back. You have so much to do under my training yet, child."

"Really?" She was afraid.

"Oh, if you want to be Lucifenian, be Lucifenian." Aria smiled. "Lucifenians are very ambitious, and gloriously blind. But stay by your mother for a few more years, because you couldn't possibly know all I do at nine."

"No." Mariam wasn't sure if changing strokes in her cleaning would indicate a change in her state of mind, but she didn't want to risk it. She kept wiping horizontal lines across the table and, afraid she was being even more reserved than usual, added, "I couldn't learn from anyone else."

Aria smiled and then laughed.

"Oh, you can learn from someone else, darling," she chuckled. "A friend- an associate, you see- really a great woman. I've told you about her, say, a month ago?"

"The one outside the army."

"Yes, that would be her." Aria smiled again and lifted a board along the edge of the basement, kicking it to the other end of the room with high velocity. "She's not like anyone my Mari has met before. She's cunning, and knowledgeable, and _very _ambitious.

She's special. Something that you won't be able to believe until you see." She chuckled again and said, "'My mother is insane!' is what you'll say."

"That sounds..." Mariam walked over to the other end of the table, "very interesting."

"And I can't tell you much about her- not for my sake, dear, but for hers," Aria said. "She needs to evaluate you herself before she shows you the things Levia blessed her with."

"I can't wait," Mariam said, and it wasn't a lie.

* * *

Gast eyed the bottle of wine in his hand. It was dark and thick, as he'd found out this afternoon over bread and soup, and its sweetness made it seem almost like syrup.

Originally, he'd had reservations about intoxication around other soldiers. He wasn't sure how he might act around them. But after a few drinks in the past month, keeping alert about anything expositional was easy enough, maybe seemed easier with the edge taken off.

"Yes?" Gast called from the back of his room in an inn worn into tending to soldiers and the like over its years.

"Hey!" Came the voice of another soldier, Rean Magen. Gast turned around and in came the form of a tall, muscular young man with pink hair and shifty eyes.

"Gast, you're old enough to know about this, eh?" Rean chuckled. He'd clearly had something to drink, too. It was to be expected now, when they were moving further into combat zone.

Then, the other soldiers drank to forget their troubles. Gast drank to celebrate them.

"What do you need?" Gast asked, an eyebrow raised. He had a conjured an air about him, one that he used most of the time to signal enough comfort for conversation but not enough to be invested in it.

"Hmph." Rean rolled his glistening eyes and leaned against the doorframe.

"Going to ask you what wine you like, buddy. Kid like you needs to _socialize_-" He waved a hand around and quickly thumped it back down on the doorframe.

Rean wasn't going to pick up on any signals to leave Gast alone, so it was best to humor him.

"I thought I'd been friendly enough," Gast said carefully, "but I'd be happy to find better wine than this next week-"

"Ha!" Barked Rean. "Wine? Forget wine! Move on to some scotch and you'll be happier!"

Gast stiffened, but he kept his face neutral.

"Okay. Have a time?" If he rejected Rean's invitation at this point, a drunken state of mind would make him exaggerate the story, or forget about it anyways. Gast's guard hadn't been down since he came to the army, or before then.

"When we finish with all the fighting, kid." Rean nodded and smiled as though victory in this battle was already claimed. "Worry less about your troubled past and more about how you'll fit in with the army once you look like a real soldier."

Real soldier.

Why is victory imminent? Gast wanted to ask. What is a real soldier? Why am I not one?

Why do you care?

"Hey," Rean said, "why not a spar between us- or my strongest pal, why not? You like that, and it's social."

"That sounds fine." Gast rose and waved Rean away from his room. Secretly, he worried about how social the spar would become. "I'll be in the shed with my sword anyways. If the handle is loose, I need a replacement."

Rean looked at Gast and then at the room.

"Then I'll sober up, kid."

Again, he looked over his shoulder as Gast shut the door and walked away, then pulled out a biscuit from his pocket and began to nibble like a drunk mouse.

The inn was large, three stories, and warm. It was a warm day, after all, the the preparations for Asmodean's army in the ovens made it warmer.

Gast stayed closer the walls, eyes up, and alert. He passed an odd worker who turned their head quickly at him and occasionally another soldier. He got the same reaction.

The swords were kept in a locked shaded shed, and to get to them for dueling, Gast needed a key. He was supposed to ask General Shalgham's youngest son, Kole, for it. Kole was the treasurer of their supplies and if he stole from anything himself, it wasn't a high concern of his father.

Usually, Kole was found in either his room, (which was too personal for an average soldier to go knocking into), or another room that served as an office. Gast didn't sigh, but felt himself emotionally descend as he knocked on the door and not Kole, who was ignorant and obnoxious enough, but his father opened it. A small, aesthetically feminine man who was much, much more hostile than his looks implied.

"Gast… Venom," Shalgham said. "You need a key, right?"

"Yes."

"Alright," Shalgham reached into a drawer and pulled out a large copper key. Piled high into the drawer was a stack of papers that reached the top, blank side up.

"Thank you, sir," said Gast. As their fingers brushed, Shalgham hastily retracted his hand, pulling his elbow over the pages.

They spilled to the floor.

"Don't get that!" Shalgham barked, pushing the chair away to scramble for the papers.

Gast stood far away with ease. But his eyes wandered to the side of the room, resting on a sheet that had slid over the marble floor and beside the door.

"This is simply none of your concern," Shalgham said. Blonde strands of hair fell over his face and he didn't bother to brush them out of the way.

Gast nodded.

"I understand, sir. Thank you, and goodbye."

He turned and left the room. Accidentally, he stepped on the sheet of paper.

Insurgence.

Mustering a drop from his oceans of social willpower, Gast didn't look at the paper and instead said, "I apologize".

Then he was gone.

* * *

Ried Shalgham, now alone, cursed under his breath and picked up the paper.

"March 2nd,

EC 468"

The paper began describing the exploits of Zenon, who in this entry murdered the son of a baker and stole not only bread but cakes as well. Previously, it had also described the struggles he'd had attacking the son with a stick until he'd lured him into a location with his sword, abandoning all reason and seeing a young child's death to the end.

The sword had powers, the paper had noted, powers not just of the body, but of the mind.

Ried, though, shook his head and silently wished as horrid a death upon the demon's descendant as the innocent boy had suffered. He had an ill mind, sword or not- or that, at least, was what Ried thought.

Sighing, he walked back to the desk and laid the paper next to the others.

This went with '68… Ried flipped to the papers from then and kept his thumb on a more important year- EC 470. He'd been studying it before, particularly the behavior not of then-Zenon, but his sister.

Sarah was two years younger than her brother, little, and weak. She'd disappeared four years ago and shown up at the bottom of a cliff with a young victim. It wasn't a surprise given that on good days she liked to get into fights with the braver children in her town. More efficient than her brother in stealing, (she didn't take the time to kill, as if she could in the first place), more outright hostile, and not the pinnacle of sweetness people thought of when lost loves of their lives were called to mind. She was bitter. And Gast had loved her anyways, because lice can't judge lice.

Ironic, how when love was supposed to be a redeeming factor, the love of a demon's descendant further propelled them into darkness.

But there did pose a problem for Ried , Aria, and IR. To make Sarah as sweet and lovely and dead as Riliane Roses, or what she really was- a maggot-infested burnt crust of bread in a bakery of real food?

To discuss this… Ried shook his head frustratedly. He couldn't write his question down, because he had the most to lose in this operation if he was discovered uprooting one of his own men. Claiming framery was one thing when you hadn't left your mark on the papers, claiming framery when you _had_ was another.

If only he'd closed the door with the papers sooner… Getting Gast out of the room had seemed more urgent. While Ried looked pretty, he had a bad time controlling emotions.

The dark walls had of the room anyhow had started to feel foreboding and incriminating, so Ried shut the drawer, took out another key from his coat pocket, and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.

If only he could get away from the warmth… It was beginning to make him sweat…

Ried ambled with a bit of effort down the halls of the inn and walked down to the lowest level, a basement that Aria Futapie had agreed to be, too famous to fraud her way in but quite good at slipping to and from places without anyone's knowledge. They were to compare interpretations of the papers and discuss practical matters of engaging everyone in the plot.

She smiled when she saw him.

"Have you finished with the journals?" she asked.

"Indeed," Ried said, "and my resource is Yvette. So let's discuss her role."

"Ah," Aria said. "Sarah."

"Sarah," he agreed. "Sarah was not a spectacular child, it seems. Just a sick kid on the side of the road."

"Hm." Aria was sitting on a cushion in the corner, not at all bothered by the desolate appearance of where she was. "So is he."

"Of course," said Ried, though Aria's candidness about the matter surprised him; she had always been polite about Gast before. "Yes. Of course- he can't say anything about her, with what he is…"

Aria laughed.

"Indeed."

She stood up and leaned against the wall.

"I despise that boy. At first he was destined to die in battle, but he's stuck around." She smiled.

"Yes," Ried said, "so we need to get rid of him for good. My question is, how should we present Sarah?"

Aria picked up the pillow and held it against her chest like a young girl, relaxed and free.

"Any little girl is happy to see her beloved brother, so make her sweet with happiness."

Ried paused.

"It may come across as too contrived. Especially with our explanation." He looked down. "Perhaps something about how she hates soldiers?"

"Perhaps," Aria said, "or possessiveness."

"Alright," said Ried, "and Yvette would play along regardless. She's bound to be obedient, so we shouldn't worry there."

"Oh," Aria said, "you should worry. The obedient ones are so often the knife in your back- the _dangerously_ rebellious child."

Ried nodded.

For another two hours, they discussed loyalty. Yvette, Mariam, and IR. Everyone, Aria said, had their own motives and no one was without potential to betray.

Not even her.

Sarah's character was agreed upon to be happy and sweet and a bit aggressive towards Gast's new, well-off friends, and the topic was turned back to how to secure each participant's obedience.

"Yvette has nothing to gain by betraying us," Ried insisted. "My bread is her life."

"I would say the same about Mariam, but look what she's doing," said Aria.

"It's a fake betrayal. She's a double agent."

"Yes."

Aria's nonchalance unnerved Ried, but he said nothing. For a moment.

"Alright. Thank you for the discussion," he said at last. "How long will you stay here?"

"Not long," said Aria. "This is a most uncomfortable hideout."

* * *

"Hello…?"

Silence.

Gast looked around the hall for a second longer before grudgingly going to return to the field. All he'd needed was a sip of _water_. Drunken fools were much more tempting to harm than a regular person, amazingly, but doing so would kill an unnaturally light mood.

He preferred true battle.

In the moments that followed, all that could be heard were the sound of Gast's footsteps, and the sound of a young girl's breath.

She was crouched behind a chair in front of the grand window.

Yvette silently thanked Levia for concealing her from this handsome young man, one who she knew wouldn't return from his mission and would give her something along with his life afterwards.

She felt something knotting in her chest, but kept her breathing steady.

He just seemed to _normal_ to kill, too elegant and lean and beautiful to be a glad sacrifice, but if that was what he was…

Neither of them would be handed a happy ending. Gast had won his, right? The only difference was that Yvette would win hers now.

Looking out over the field, Yvette hoped she wouldn't see him there. Her gaze lingered on.


End file.
